Husband is a big fan of Mongolian BBQ. When we discovered an all-you-can-eat place in Manhattan Beach during one of our exploratory drives, he was ecstatic. Big Wok has now become one of our “go to” places for when we don’t feel like cooking and want something inexpensive and filling to eat.

Wok me, Amadeus

This place is pretty popular, especially during the dinner hours. We usually try to get there earlier so that we don’t have to wait in lines to get our food and have it cooked. We’ve never had to wait to be seated and are always greeted quickly by a smiling waitress. Service here has always been great. Parking on the other hand…

Meat, meat, meat

Just some of the veggie offerings

Big Wok operates like any other AYCE Mongolian BBQ. You grab a bowl, fill it with semi-frozen slices of meat, vegetables and noodles. Then you top it off with various sauces and hand the dish to a cook who gives you back a plate of steaming hot yummy eats. The selection at Big Wok isn’t as big as other places I’ve been to but it has enough variety to make for interesting combinations.

The meat section offers turkey, chicken, pork, beef and lamb. I usually do a combo of chicken, beef and lamb, sometimes pork. There’s also tofu for the vegetarians.

There’s a good variety of sauces. Regular BBQ oil, spicy BBQ oil, garlic water, ginger water, curry sauce, lemon water, chili oil… There’s a card with a few combinations but, like all other Mongolian BBQ places I’ve ate at, I find it best if you at least double the number of spoonfuls. Otherwise, you end up with a bland dish. I like to use the spicy BBQ oil, garlic water (be sure to add in the garlic chips), a little ginger water and a spoonful of chili oil. I think I may have to add in more chili as it never comes out as spicy as I want.

There's meat under all that...

Mmmm mmmm....

I don’t usually do noodles as I prefer rice. I’m not sure why. I do like noodles but I never get them at Mongolian BBQ places. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to fill up on them when I know I’m also going to get “mana biscuits”. Husband, on the other hand, is the opposite. He loads up on meat and noodles. Completely skips the veggie section…*sigh*

Oodles of noodles

Hey, where's the greens?

Mana Biscuits

Back to the “mana biscuits”. What I’m talking about are those Chinese flat sesame-crusted bread thingies. Husband and I used to play a lot of WoW and talked about having a guild party at our place and doing a WoW themed menu. We decided that these bread items would be perfect “mana biscuits”. I know, we’re dorks… I love these things, though. Husband doesn’t eat them since he’s got oodles of noodles on his plate so I always gobble them up. There’s a nice crispness on the outside; the inside is warm and a little chewy. I like to wipe the plate with them…so good!

Our total bill, tip included, ranges from $25-30 depending on if we get drinks or not. Big Wok also offers some sides like fried shrimp, kimchee, soup and wontons but I’ve never ordered them and never seen anyone else with those dishes on their table.

Over the Christmas break, the Husband and I met up with my parents for lunch in Orange County. The last few times we’ve done this, we’ve gone to New Seoul BBQ, an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ Buffet. The reason…meat-fest!

Unlike Manna, the place we frequent up in LA, New Seoul is a self-serve buffet. This is more convenient since there is no time wasted trying to flag down a waiter and put in an order for meat. Also, New Seoul has a wider variety of choices than Manna’s all-you-can-eat menu. I think the meat is better quality as well. It is more expensive, though. Since my parents always paid, I never got a look at the check but I’m guessing $20ish/pp for weekend lunch.

New Seoul BBQ - banchan

When you walk in, you’re greeted by a long bar. On one side, various banchan and a salad bar await your consumption. Different kinds of kimchi, spinach, bean sprouts, tofu are just some of the choices. Overall, the banchan is of decent quality. They have a lot of the things I like to eat, including pickled shredded daikon and almond jelly.

The other side offers up various marinated meats and seafood. The usual suspects – bulgogi, kalbi, chicken and pork bulgogi – are present but so are pork belly, tripe, beef tongue, baby octopus, mussels, and whole shrimp.

There’s also stations offering up hot items like udon, fried rice, japchae, egg rolls, fried mandoo, steamed egg. The japchae is average though the noodles are sometimes overcooked, maybe from sitting under the heatlamp for too long. The steamed egg is not that great. They also have a couple of types of nigiri sushi but I usually pass as the one time I tried it, the fish didn’t taste fresh; it had a strong fish taste. For dessert, there’s fruit, jello and a yogurt machine as well as a persimmon-rice drink.

New Seoul BBQ - Various meats on the table grill

Whenever we’ve gone, the service has been good. We seem to always get the same table everytime. The booths are big and spacious, giving everyone a lot of elbow room but still keeping them in arm’s reach of the grill. The waitresses bring the rice (white or “brown” (purple, actually)) to the table instead of us getting it ourselves and they also cut the meat. They are pretty good about checking in on us as well.

While the price may seem steep for a buffet, for our family it is a decent deal since we can pack away the Korean BBQ. Just be careful as they will charge you for any meat you leave behind.

Everytime we have come here, the place has been fairly empty. I don’t know if it’s the cost that’s prohibitive for lunch or if people prefer to come here during the dinner hours. It works out nicely for us as we get good service and there’s no line at the buffet.

When Nozomi first opened, I used to come here a lot because their sushi rolls were cheap, tasty and HUUUUGE. As my taste buds migrated to preferring nigiri, I stopped coming here. Last week, I wandered back for dinner last night with a friend. I noticed that while they still had their mile-long list of specialty rolls and non-sushi menu, they had added an “all you can eat” sushi option for $25-ish. Starving, my friend and I chose to try it out. BIG MISTAKE. I’ve been to different sushi restaurants in San Diego that had all you can eat options and was never disappointed…till now.

Nozomi - nigiri (scallops, salmon, albacore, hamachi, tuna, unagi)

Nozomi - Rolls (Dragon and ???)

The nigiri and some of the rolls are half-portions, meaning instead of the usual two pieces of nigiri, you only get one. Not really a problem…just got to remember to mark twice as much as you wanted. The huge issue was the quality. It was like they wanted to get rid of whatever old fish they had lying around. The nigiri didn’t taste fresh at all and frankly, some of it was disgusting. The rolls were better because there were other things like sauce to mask some of that fishy flavor.

I ordered an amaebi nigiri and this was probably the most foul thing of the night. There was still a piece of shell. The flavor seemed…off and I almost spit it out. The shrimp head wasn’t fried enough either.

The quality of Nozomi seems to have gone down and yet this place was packed. Frankly, even though the rolls were still okay, after that horrible nigiri experience, I’m not sure I’m keen on coming back here.

The location in the La Jolla/UTC area (Nozomi 2) seems to still retain some sense of fish quality as only a couple of weeks before, I shared a sashimi platter with a coworker and was quite happy with it. I think I’ll stick with that location instead of the Convoy St. one. Also, there seems to be some differences in the menus between the two Nozomis.

I would have given Nozomi a higher rating before but after this visit, they only get 2 NOMs from the Catty Critic.